For the second time that day, Herman saw something in his hired hand he’d never seen before. “People?”
“Sí. It’s a hard trip into this country, full of bad men. As bad as these, I think.”
The man with a three-day beard tapped Gabe’s leg. “Name’s Perry Hale. I’ve been in the shit before. I was supposed to be with another group, but they’re shot up. Me’n Yolanda’ll get you close enough to the door, but you need to move fast.”
Before Gabe could ask questions, Perry Hale pointed two fingers to the right. Yolanda raised the M4 and squeezed off two three-round bursts. She crouched and rushed to the granite monument, taking cover and waiting for Perry Hale.
Confident in the maneuver, he rose in crouch. “You guys grab my ass and let’s go. Stay with me!”
He darted through the deep snow on the lawn, firing short bursts. Return fire erupted from behind the van. Bullets cracked past with the sound of snapping fingers. Luke and Danny spread out and rushed the courthouse.
“Well shit, shit from a cow!” Gabe traded Herman the bolt-action rifle for the handgun in his belt and snatched the orange bucket’s handle. He ran toward the van.
Herman rose to one knee. “Pour it on ’em!” His .30-30 barked with a steady message as he jacked the lever.
It became a full-scale war when their fusillade pushed the terrorists down. One popped up to take a shot but dropped in an instant. Perry Hale and Yolanda kept up the pressure as they worked to set up firing positions, moving in the way they’d been taught. At least two rounds found their target and a terrorist fell back, still moving and shooting, but slower. Another darted out the door and took his place, stepping into a swarm of bullets that pocked the stucco around him.
Perry Hale managed to get the van between himself and the defending terrorists and angled for another shot from the opposite side. Luke and Danny kept up a constant barrage. Caught in a crossfire, those at the doors fell back. Luke took a knee and fired, covering his brother, who set himself up for the shot needed to detonate the Tannerite. Hale slapped in a fresh magazine and kept pressure on the rear of the van to discourage any more defenders who wanted to be heroes.
Herman’s .30-30 clicked dry and he reloaded from the loose rounds in his coat pocket, watching Gabe’s advance. Their covering fire didn’t decline. The others picked up the slack, allowing Gabe to get close enough to throw. He grabbed the handle with both hands and spun like an Olympian to gain momentum and released the bucket. It bounced and skittered across the snow, coming to rest under the van’s rear end.
* * *
Danny angled for position with the .223 in his hands. He stood erect, lined the iron sights up on the bucket, and squeezed the trigger.
And missed.
Herman groaned, knowing they’d been lucky so far, but someone was going to get shot pretty soon. Bullets snapped through the air, and Danny snugged the stock into his shoulder and squeezed the trigger again. The semiautomatic rifle chattered, setting off twenty-five pounds of Tannerite.
Herman watched with openmouthed amazement as the rear of the van vaporized in a cloud of smoke.
Chapter 84
Mr. Beck and the armed hostages were behind the locked courtroom doors, and I had all the bad guys hemmed up below, though I bet they didn’t see it that way. I was making progress.
From all the shooting, it sounded like SWAT or a Delta team was assaulting the building. The sentries down below turned their attention outside, giving me some relief. I knew better than to get up, and at that point, I was pretty happy with the situation, what there was of it.
All I had to do was keep the staircases covered in case someone tried to come up and take the hostages back again. Acrid smoke boiling from the hole in the rotunda floor burned my eyes as I locked a fresh mag into place. I waited, figurin’ I’d just take up space until the response team took control of the building.
A massive kick in my back made me holler right out loud.
I scuttled across the floor like a crab, trying to dig in on the slick floor with my boot heels. Somebody on the landing above shot again and missed. I caught sight of a figure with a rag tied around his head and rattled him some with a short burst. That damned little machine pistol shot fast, and I was afraid I’d emptied the mag already.
My lower back lit up with electric bolts of blue pain as I crawled away. The adage kept playing in my head. If you’re not shooting, you’re reloading, if you’re not reloading, you’re moving. If you’re not moving, you’re dead.
I couldn’t move fast with the wind half-knocked out of me. The Old Man always said that what gives wild game away is movement. That’s how I knew where the shooter was. I scooted back against the wall and out of his line of sight. It had to be Mr. Acrobat, the one who’d flipped out of the way and disappeared from the courtroom door.
I’d made a mistake thinking the female terrorist was the one we’d missed.
A glimpse showed me he was angling for another shot, and he might have had me if good ol’ Mr. Beck hadn’t showed up again. He slipped through the shadows to find a position that was better’n mine. With the shooter’s attention on me, Mr. Beck had time to aim. He fired twice.
The bad guy collapsed like someone cut the strings on a puppet. The man’s head came to rest against the spindles and Mr. Beck shot twice more. He damn sure believed in anchoring a threat.
Not paying any attention to the open stairway, he hurried over. “You hurt bad, son?”
“Don’t know. Get back inside.”
He ignored me, ejected the magazine and reloaded. “Told you I could hit with this old girl.”
I rolled onto my side to check the wound. My back and left leg ached like a mule’d kicked me. Instead of finding blood, my fingers found a hole in the fabric of the tactical vest. There’d be a mother of a bruise come tomorrow.
If I lived that long.
Mr. Beck knelt, knees popping. “You’re one lucky son of a gun.”
“Not that lucky the way my back’s screaming.”
“You’ll feel better when it quits hurtin’.” He grabbed my arm and we struggled upright. “Let’s get you inside.”
My cell phone buzzed as I regained my feet, but I figured the caller on the other end could wait.
Chapter 85
The snowstorm provided DeVaca with a glorious opportunity to succeed, but at the same time it caused a disruption in the schedule he was banking on.
He checked his watch and shouted over the firestorm. “We need to go, now!” He pointed toward a dusty canister between the rotunda and the south door. “Kahn, set that timer to detonate in ten minutes.”
The explosion and resulting release of the nerve gas would take most of the responders out. He wasn’t concerned with his remaining men. They were chaff.
“Kahn, you’re in change. You’re now my right hand.”
The jihadist fell back into familiar rote. “Allahu akbar!”
DeVaca spoke to himself. “Tell him in person.”
* * *
Richard Carver’d had enough. The firepower concentrated on the north entrance convinced him the dance was over. “Let’s go.”
Shot twice and bleeding from his mouth, Tom Jordan emptied half a magazine at two figures moving through the snow. The remainder of the team were dead. “Where to?”
“The van. I think that bastard DeVaca’s gonna leave, and we’re going with him.”
The homegrown terrorists crawled through the open doors. Once inside and out of sight as the doors blew shut behind them, they stood. Jordan threw his arm over Carver’s shoulder. They stumbled down the hallway and past the ravaged rotunda. Smoke was boiling from the ragged hole in the floor. DeVaca knelt beside a backpack, zipping it closed. Neither Kahn nor those beside him looked up.
The southern doors were open and taking fire, but the open van beckoned.
Carver pointed, relieved that DeVaca had his back to them. Something cool dripped from above and landed on Carver’s ear. He rubbed it to find b
lood on his fingers. “C’mon! When we’re in, I’ll climb through and drive. You shoot!”
“What about the others?”
“I don’t care about those wetbacks and ragheads!”
“Are we gonna make it?”
Carver knew they’d screwed the pooch. He threw a glance into the dark elevator where the Bright girl was tied up. “We have to.”
They emerged onto the enclave and a hail of bullets.
Jordan’s ballistic vest didn’t help in the face of so many incoming rounds. He yelped and dropped as round after round of ball ammo punched through flesh and bone.
A bullet punched into the hollow of Carver’s throat, just above his ballistic vest.
* * *
A rifle appeared around the edge of an open door at the unguarded north entrance and the owner emptied a full magazine with the semiautomatic. The terrorists returned the favor on full automatic and the rifle withdrew.
Unfazed, DeVaca glanced down at the canisters that were in the direct line of fire, wondering how the shots had missed. He pushed the comm button. “Oz.”
The response came a beat later. “Here.”
“Our mission is fulfilled. We’re under assault. It won’t be long now.”
“Excellent job. Good luck, and I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
DeVaca pointed at the remaining canisters. “Get those ready to take with us! Now.”
He remembered Katie Bright was still tied to a chair in the disabled elevator. His plans for her were no longer possible, and it disappointed him. He’d already lost Dorothy and those delicious blue eyes.
It would have been fun to throw the Bright girl’s trussed body into the van for a little fun on the road, a delicious payment for a job well done. But she was nothing but baggage that would slow his alternate escape, if that came to pass. He crossed the hallway and studied the frightened young woman who stared at him with one swollen eye.
* * *
Gunfire rose and fell in a great roll of thunder. Bullets rattled against the walls like sleet. Katie Bright glared through her one good eye at the little piece of hallway in front of the elevator, hoping a rescue team would arrive. The other eye was swollen shut from the beating. She’d ridden up and down on a roller coaster of pain and terror for the past few hours and hadn’t found a place in her mind that would take her away.
Katie’s myopic view of the hallway hadn’t revealed much after that. Her head cleared after a while, and she watched men move back and forth with a purpose. They occasionally stopped to look at her. Tied with both hands behind her back, and strapped to the chair, she had no option but to glare back.
That defiance had already earned her extra slaps from the animals who liked to prey on the weak. She refused to stare at the floor and ignore what was going on around her. Katie did her best to memorize their faces, so that she might identify them at some point in the future, if she survived.
The men were an odd mix. Some were Middle Eastern, she was sure of that. The one named Kahn seemed angry, and she figured he was mad because her head wasn’t covered. Katie was sharp enough to realize that’s why Dorothy wore a hijab, to keep from raising the jihadist’s ire. She couldn’t figure out the other men. One group was American, and they had ignored her, except for one sad look from their leader as he passed earlier, supporting a wounded man.
After thinking about it and connecting the dots, she understood why the last group was Mexican. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knew they were trying to get rid of her dad and his stance on border security by using her as leverage.
Her dad was the toughest man she’d ever known. He wasn’t about to back down or make deals with terrorists. They’d made a huge mistake that rested on her shoulders.
Gunfire swelled again, and her spirits rose, hoping a Delta team had arrived to slaughter everyone who’d taken over the building. The odor of wood smoke reached the elevator, and she hoped that some of the terrorists were burning alive.
Instead of a rescue team, a single figure blocked the elevator door. She squinted through her good eye and recognized Wicked by his glasses. Her stomach fell.
There would be no help for her, because the muzzle of a pistol gaped wide and deep in her limited view. His lips moved, but she didn’t understand over the noise of gunfire.
It didn’t make any difference because she said what she needed to tell him anyway.
“You can kiss my ass.”
* * *
“Katie, time is up.”
She was answering when DeVaca caught Juan Salas from the corner of his eye. He opened the exterior southern door, pulling an Arctic blast of air down the hall as DeVaca pulled the trigger on his pistol.
Katie’s hair flew, and blood splattered against the back wall.
Behind the van, one of the terrorists absorbed round after round and dropped into a heap inside the pink stucco inset pockmarked by bullets and awash in freezing blood.
Salas rolled back inside and kicked the doorstop, propping it open.
“We’re almost out of time!”
DeVaca waved. “We’re loading!”
Salas shouted. “I need more cover fire!”
* * *
Kahn rushed past DeVaca and down the hallway to add his own weapon to their defense. Kahn’s appearance gave Salas the courage to lean out into the space between the brick wall and the van. He emptied an entire magazine and was answered by a fusillade from across the street. A bullet missed his tactical vest, striking him in the unprotected area under his arm. He died before his body hit the ground.
Kahn paused when a large orange container slid against the van’s left rear tire. He frowned at the out-of-place item.
Concentrated fire ventilated the van and slapped out chunks of the stucco until a stream of bullets struck the mixed Tannerite. The rear of the vehicle disappeared in an orange-and-yellow fireball, and the explosion blew parts of Kahn and the van back into the building. The pressure wave rolled down the hallway, leveling everything in its path.
Chapter 86
The bloodbath was softened by the falling veil of white gauze. Heavier clouds promised to dump even more snow on the already-frozen landscape.
Despite the chaotic attack, Ethan’s plan caught the terrorists at the northern entrance under sustained triangulated fire. Men with no military training fell into a loose formation behind the veterans, adding sheer numbers to the assault.
Confusing orders from different locations slowed the advance until Deputy Frank Malone took control. He grabbed three men huddled at the mouth of the alley behind the theater. “Stay with me!” He motioned at another group. “You guys angle in from the corner! See the deputies?”
They followed his point and saw two teams emerge from the sheriff’s office.
“Move up beside us and cover them! Shoot ’til you run dry!”
With Frank taking charge on one flank, Ethan led the men with him in from a different angle. They focused their fire on the barricaded doors.
Swarmed by overwhelming numbers and a concentrated barrage, the defenders fell or fled, but not before Ethan saw half a dozen citizens drop into the snow. The townspeople charged forward with the apparent intention of rushing through the doors to engage those inside, but the sheriff waved them back.
“Stay back!” He crouched behind his shot-to-pieces sheriff’s car. With more than half a dozen automatic and semi-automatic rifles pouring it on the barricaded door, the terrorists’ response slowed, then fell silent. The door opened behind the barricade and closed as the defenders crawled inside.
One by one, the guns on their side of the courthouse fell silent while the volume rose in intensity at the south entrance. Armstrong and his men rushed the barricade, anticipating the worst, but found nothing but bodies.
Completely out of character, Concepción Cuevas yanked one of the double doors open, jammed the muzzle of his semiautomatic deer rifle inside, and pulled the trigger until it ran empty.
“Get back!”
Armstrong grabbed his coat and yanked him away from the entrance. “Wait until we can get set! Y’all get away from the doors until I tell you!”
A massive explosion at the opposite end of the building rocked the square. The doors on the north entrance blew off their hinges. One of the men beside Sheriff Armstrong screamed like a woman and the rest fell back. They huddled in stunned silence in the swirling snow and wind.
Malone tapped Armstrong’s arm. “I don’t guess we’re going in right this second?”
“We will in a little bit.”
* * *
At the other end of the building, Herman and Gabe stood upright, mouths gaping in awe. The Tannerite did everything the Mayo brothers said it would and more.
The residents of Ballard breached the courthouse as a plume of yellow/orange smoke boiled out into the snow.
Chapter 87
The explosion was a heart-stopping thunderclap. The pressure wave hit us like a sledgehammer and dampened my ears even more. Already damaged by all the gunfire, my head really felt like I’d packed it full of cotton.
I wondered if someone brought in a tank or an RPG.
Icy air poured into the rotunda from dozens of broken windows. I figured that anything made of glass had shattered. The explosion knocked down or destroyed almost all of the lights running off the terrorists’ generators, leaving one to illuminate the bodies littering the floor.
“What’n hell was that?” Mr. Beck looked like he’d been slapped. “If my hearing wasn’t so bad, that woulda hurt.”
The volume of muffled gunfire from outside escalated enough to get through the cotton in my head. After a couple of seconds, it fell off and a thick, dark smoke rose from the basement. Frigid wind blew through the north entrance, creating a venturi effect, sucking the cloud through the south doors.
I kept an eye on the staircase. A guy on the floor down there kept flexing one leg, but he was doing it in a sleepy way that reminded me of a kid trying to stay awake.
“Anybody? Sonny, can you hear me?”
I didn’t answer the voice from below, waiting to see what would happen next. It sounded like Ethan, but I couldn’t be sure. I stayed prone with the MP5 aimed downward. Mr. Beck knelt beside me, the .45 pointed toward the staircase.
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